


wiping these tears away

by Umi (umichii)



Series: 30 Kisses [1]
Category: Groove Adventure RAVE | Rave Master
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-07
Updated: 2011-03-07
Packaged: 2018-04-11 12:01:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4434698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umichii/pseuds/Umi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sieg visits what was left of the Empire's headquarters and meets a ghost from his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wiping these tears away

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the prompt "say ahh..."
> 
> This is set somewhere after Sieg and Shuda's reunion in the ruins of the Empire HQ. Spoilers refer to Sieg's past.

The rain does not stop. It continues on, relentless, battering the lifeless bodies, washing away all of the stain on the cracked soil of the desolate land. It is the very capitol of death, the wasted, barren land. Irony strikes with no mercy, and it strikes, indeed, with such power that no one foresaw. The Emperor had expended thousands of lives for the sake of retaining his power and yet none succeeded to keep him alive.

Sieg used to be like any of those lives. He was like a foot soldier put under a general’s command, prepared to be given away without any second thought. Before he could even open his eyes, before his first breath, he was already expendable. But that did not diminish his sympathy, and it did not stop him from feeling that deep ache in his chest when he arrived at the site of destruction, broken bodies strewn everywhere like scraps after a hurricane. It did not stop him from shaking in anger and the swelling of pity at the sight of the gruesome corpse, its face he could hardly remember mangled beyond recognition. The tiny hope he has kept at the very back of his mind, the only thought that ties him to his past self—all of it wiped away like dust.

The roaring thunder stops him from drowning in self-pity. And now that his mind is finally clear of all the darkness, of all the emotions that he has suddenly reacquired after years of suppression, he realizes he is not as heartless as he has been painted to become. Whatever Shuda said, he is as human as a child, and as a child, he will forever yearn for the parents he never had the chance to have. He might have never told anyone about it or utter the mere idea of it, but the thought of it stays in his mind, a constant but irksome companion.

Cheated. He feels so greatly cheated, slapped and backhanded, face slammed by the door—everything and anything that is of equivalent to the emptiness that suddenly appears and begins to eat his tailored composure away, and this startles him more than anything else, that someone who he is not even acquainted with can bring forth such an emotion from him. So little was spent, none actually, yet so much was given. It is unheard of, and Sieg does not like to believe that blood truly runs thicker than water, but at least not as thick as common sense.

“How long are you going to spend standing there? Until your bones turned into ice?”

He will forever be grateful though of Shuda’s presence. If it wasn’t for the swordsman, he might have already wallowed in something even worse than self-pity, and that he does not even want to believe is possible. The sudden outburst of so many unnameable emotions in him is enough. The sky has turned black, starless and dark and solemn, as if the heaven itself is in mourning with him. But he is not mourning for the dead, and neither is he mourning for himself. No, he is mourning for that child in him that died, murdered the moment the last of his family leaves the living, that child that will never be able to have what other children have, that child whose hope is shredded and torn apart without any hint of remorse, and he pities that child who will never be able to join the parents that he barley know in the next world for how can he seek them when he does not even know them?

\--

Shuda watches Sieg drenching himself out there in the cold rain. The mage has been standing under the pressure of the rain for almost three hours, since it begins to pour, and despite dragging him inside the barely surviving building Shuda has found, the mage still steps out into the rain. 

Sieg has his head bowed at first, watching unseeingly at the earth wetted with both blood and mud, and Shuda believes with tears as well when the mage has raised his head towards the sky, eyes closed almost serenely that belies the warring emotions inside him.

Shuda can never understand the man that is Sieg, try as he might. It makes him guilty though when he realizes that the mage is as capable of feeling as any human that breathes and lives. He must have been too harsh in giving judgments to a man that rarely receives one, and now that Sieg has received such a cruel remark from him, the mage must be gruelling himself over it. 

Ah, maybe he should step out as well and snap the mage out of it.

And he’s glad he did. If he hadn’t, the mage would have cracked his head open with how he suddenly collapsed lifelessly the moment Shuda steps a foot out of their little shelter from the rain.

Cradling the unconscious body of the mage, Shuda curses silently when his hand brushes against a wet forehead burning with fever, and even he can tell it is a fever with how the shivers coursing through the mage’s body is not caused by a disturbed psyche.

Carrying the unconscious mage back to their hideout is no real challenge, and this only alarms Shuda of the unordinary lightness of the mage’s body. It is only when he has already laid Sieg on the ground and bare of all the wet clothes did Shuda question himself on what he should do next. Nevertheless, he does not like the idea one bit.

\--

Sieg wakes up to something hitting his chest and the air he breathed stolen from his lungs with a gasp. There is something hard and clammy wrapped all over him, and he does not like how it is tickling him in places he doesn’t know he’s ticklish in. Squirming a little to get away from that wretched thing, he cracks one eye open and instantly he snaps fully awake and more than just aware of his surroundings.

“Nngh...” Shuda groans in his sleep, and the arm slung over Sieg’s chest pulls him against a chest. A very hard and muscled chest. 

Sieg swallows the metaphorical butterfly from flying out of his mouth, body taut with tension. It does not help when he realizes it’s not the normal, acceptable kind of nakedness.

Futilely, Sieg pushes the arm away only to have it move down and around his waist, and when that move ends up turning Sieg onto his side, back against that chest he almost damned, Sieg is completely sure the Fates are conspiring against him.

He clenches his eyes shut and bites his lower lip hard enough to break skin and pretends he’s as still as a rock, even when something moved and slithered southwards and he moved in sync as well and before long, he’s shivering not in cold but in heat, and he loses himself to apprehension knowing it is no ordinary physical heat as his body loses the little semblance of control left in him with an almost painful moan.

Panting, Sieg squeezes the arm wound tightly around his hips and half-heartedly curses the man pressed hotly against him. 

“You...”

“Better?”

Once again, Sieg tenses, the butterflies inside him forcefully clawing their way out of his belly. The audible peck on the juncture between his neck and shoulder only worsens the state of his guts, and Sieg is glad he’s turned away from Shuda right now. Heaven knows what sort of bodily harm he could have inflicted on the redhead.

“Sorry,” the swordsman mutters against his shoulder, the hand still stuck down there now lazily drawing some circular pattern on his thigh. “Couldn’t think of anything else that’d work.”

Of course the swordsman would do something completely barbaric yet instinctual. 

“You’re supposed to be the normal one here,” Sieg answers softly, fighting back the urge to turn around and face the man that eased the stress out of him. His hands itch to do so, and he thinks it must have shown with how he clutches onto the arm that has become his lifesaver. 

So he just leans back, resting his head against the other arm that is half flesh and half metal. He watches the stillness of the steel hand, imagining the thousands of connected wires inside of it and how one wrong move can blow him up.

Without thinking, Sieg reaches out and touches the smooth surface of the prosthetic hand, fingers sliding down the metal until intertwining and holding it as he would with a real one. “You always have the flair for the dramatics.”

“True,” Shuda murmurs, chuckling softly, as he orders his false hand to return the gesture. “But you always like the dramatics.”

Sieg allows himself a small smile while his back is still turned. 

“Mmm...” 

But he knows, and he is sure, that without having to witness it visually, Shuda can tell. Somehow, in some manner or form, Shuda can always tell, and however hard Sieg tries, he can never hide even just a trace of worry once Shuda puts himself to searching for it. It comforts him though to know that despite not having the set of parents to care for him and for him to turn to given any circumstances, he at least has somebody else who he can trust to catch him if he falls.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure when I first started writing this, it was to explore what Sieg could have felt upon seeing what happened to his previous home. It was never explained in canon how Sieg went from the capitol to Mildea, but it was implied by Shuda when he commented Sieg's lack of grief at the Emperor's death that Sieg left out of a choice. Sieg going back to the site of massacre could be because of his duties, but I really wanted to explore the more human side of Sieg. He was this very mysterious character but we could see developments of him opening up, so why not go along that note?
> 
> Of course, I got derailed by the latter part of it when I remembered I was writing this for 30kisses. I may come back and rewrite this in the future without the initial prompt.


End file.
